Welcome!

Now that your team is set up with what3words, it’s time to make sure that everyone knows about it. Spreading the word will mean that your community will be prepared to communicate their exact location, whether that’s in an emergency, in a social context, or for work. Please share this page with anyone else who you think could help to spread the awareness too!

Preparing your community with the free what3words app is so important because:

It helps Canadian emergency services find callers faster when they share their 3-word location in a time-critical situation.
The app works offline, so you're able to discover and navigate to a what3words address even without access to data.
It can be a useful tool to help prevent getting lost.

Below you'll find all you need to understand how to use what3words, then announce, educate and encourage people in your community to use what3words too.

<aside> 📩 Don't hesitate to reach out if you need more information or want to set up an information/training session for your team or the agencies you work with. You can always email [email protected] and she will find a member of our team who can help you.

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For faster navigation, simply click on the topic you need to be taken straight to the relevant section.

Contents

👋 Introduction to what3words 👋

Street addresses or the 'closest dispatchable address' do not always point to the right location or entrance, and many parts of Canada do not have an address, like parks, forests and waterways.

what3words is an easy way to identify precise locations. Every 3 metre square in the world has been given a unique combination of three random words: a what3words address.

For example, ///minders.trim.vector is the what3words address for a jetty on an island, on a lake, in Ontario. It's much easier to say the what3words address than to try and describe the location based on landmarks.

what3words addresses are a human-friendly way of giving the same information as 16 digit GPS coordinates.

They are easier to remember, and quicker and easier to say over the phone, or to enter into a device or navigation system by voice or text. what3words has error-prevention technology which helps users quickly identify and correct input mistakes.

You might receive a what3words address directly from a dispatch centre via radio or over the phone, you might see a what3words address written on a signpost in the format ///word.word.word, or what3words may be integrated into your systems. However you're using what3words, it will help you to easily find, communicate and navigate to precise locations using three simple words.